NYPD RED

Patterson (Kill Alex Cross, 2011, etc.), here with co-writer Karp, moves to the posh confines of the Big Apple’s Upper East Side as he delves into crimes against the tabloid-dwelling rich and famous.

Detective Zach Jordan is all about Courtesy, Professionalism and Respect, the new motto of the NYPD. That's handy when he and his new partner are dispatched to a posh hotel to investigate the death of a studio honcho in town for “Hollywood on the Hudson,” an event designed to steal movie business from Los Angeles. Jordan’s new partner, and old girlfriend, is Kylie MacDonald, now married to a successful show-business producer. One dead film mogul is only the beginning. Next on the hit list is a skirt-chasing married actor dead from two fatal rounds from a prop gun supposedly loaded with blanks. The Tinseltown movers and shakers who have descended on Gotham have become targets for the Chameleon, a frustrated working stiff actor who spends his time among the scenery as an extra. But the Chameleon has a talent for makeup and special effects and a sociopath sycophant girlfriend to assist. Via her producer husband, K-Mac knows everyone who’s anyone, and she can don evening wear and mingle where cops aren’t readily visible. That means she’s on the red carpet when the Chameleon’s next victim, vodka-swilling bad boy Brad Schuck, is torched by a Molotov cocktail lobbed into his Hummer limo. With the publicity-conscious mayor leaning hard on Jordan’s boss, a clone of Lt. Van Buren on Law and Order, there are round-the-clock shifts at the 19th Precinct, leaving little time for Jordan to go one-on-one at Gerri’s Diner with his possible new flame, department shrink Cheryl Robinson. First, he has to team up again with MacDonald to save her husband and second, foil the Chameleon’s plot to send a hundred Hollywood types to never-never land with big chunks of C-4.

Characters shoot their way through an entertaining script right to a conclusion with a hole in it.